


what can't be bought

by Damkianna



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Death Fix, M/M, Team as Family, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 04:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13115976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: Two things are immediately obvious. One is that he's not dead, which is great. But the other is that he doesn't remember anything in between going into the Transfer Transit tube and coming out of it.(AU from the end of 2.01: Too paranoid about der Hoeven's offer of transport to accept it, One manages to generate a Transfer Transit clone that looks like him instead of Derrick Moss, to test the waters for him. And then Jace Corso shoots it five times and leaves it to die on the floor, and it's up to One to figure out just where to go from there.)





	what can't be bought

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mimm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimm/gifts).



> I've wanted to write a fix-it AU of 2.01 pretty much since I watched it, Mimm—your request for One/Three and likes of fix-its and fork-in-the-road AUs were apparently all I needed to motivate me to actually get it done. :D I hope you like this, and happy Yuletide! ♥
> 
> All kinds of handwaving in here, including a little fudging of the timeline, for the sake of not repeating too much of 2.01-2.02. Plus some very dubious technobabble. ~~I DID MY BEST~~

 

 

One gasps into the dark and slams his hands into—a surface? Something over him, curved. Slick under his fingertips, cool and solid and unmoving. And then lights flicker on in a line all around him, and he scrabbles for the interior catch and shoves the Transfer Transit tube open.

Two things are immediately obvious. One is that he's not dead, which is great. But the other is that he doesn't remember anything happening in between going into the Transfer Transit tube and coming out of it.

Which means either the clone just happened to be the victim of some sort of freak accident, or there really is someone trying to kill Derrick Moss.

"Okay," he says aloud. "All right. I can figure this out."

He climbs out of the tube and strips off the stupid Transit suit, wondering absently how exactly he's going to figure out where he—his clone—Corso's clone—has been today, and where he died, and who might have been around. He'd timed it carefully, lined things up a day in advance. Lucky for him Moss was so rich, and Corso had already had some run-ins with the GA; he doesn't know how Moss would've managed to land Corso's genetic profile information otherwise. But there it had been, tucked away with everything else Moss had dug up on Corso before heading off to be him.

It had taken forever, screwing around with the advanced settings on the Transit tube until he got it to let him input an external profile. And he hadn't had much time to get it done. He'd wanted to make sure the clone would be the one who left with Felicia Brand today on der Hoeven's transport, which made for an automatic deadline.

But did he succeed? What even happened? He has no idea which stage of the proceedings involved death. Did the transport blow up with the clone on board? Or did whoever killed it stick around long enough to see the clone body disintegrate? If they did, they might've guessed he has a private Transfer Transit tube. Hell, they might be on their way here right now, to take out the real Derrick Moss before he can leave the building.

One gets three-quarters of the way to the door of Derrick Moss's suite before he remembers he doesn't have any pants on. And a shirt would probably be a good idea, too, for that matter.

He pauses and glances down at himself, and that's when he notices the thin gray layer of dust on the carpet under his feet.

In the shape of a body.

"Oh, shit," he says, staring down at it. That answers a couple questions—and raises a whole bunch more.

 

 

 

At the very least, the clone dying right inside Derrick Moss's suite means One can see exactly how it happened.

He watches the footage once and then lets it loop around again, again. It would almost be kind of funny if it weren't so creepy: two people with his face, and _neither_ of them are him. Jace Corso shoots the Transfer Transit clone four times without hesitating, without even flinching, and then waits for it to fall and shoots it once more in the head. And then he turns and walks out, barely half a second before what's left of the clone loses integrity and comes apart all over the floor.

Lucky, One supposes. If Corso had realized he was shooting a clone, he'd probably have searched the rest of the suite for a Transfer Transit tube—and nothing would have stopped him from finding it. He could have popped it open and shot One in the face right there, and One wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

The video loops again, the clone taking Corso's shots and then toppling unsteadily to the floor. One shivers a little, absent, watching not-quite-himself stare at Corso in surprise and then die, and all at once he can't stand to see it again. He reaches out and taps the screen to shut it off, and feels relieved when the monitor goes obediently black.

Derrick Moss's security, even in this rented penthouse, is top-notch—but there's a hole in it so obvious that One could punch himself for not having realized it before. That whole rigmarole he went through to make sure the clone would still look like Derrick Moss looking like Jace Corso, and it hadn't even occurred to him. He'd _known_ Transfer Transit would be a problem, because that was how he'd figured out who he really was in the first place. But the rest of it? Hadn't even crossed his mind. Derrick Moss probably would have thought of it; but One can't remember ever looking any other way than the way he looks now, and some part of him has always felt like it's Jace Corso who stole _his_ face, not the other way around.

Derrick Moss used to look different. And One coming back like this, stepping into his shoes, meant Felicia Brand must have had to get it all programmed with up-to-date biometrics when she'd set this place up. New facial scans, new retinal scans, new finger- and palm- and thumbprints, and every single one of them a perfect match to Jace Corso. Corso's whole body is a skeleton key, when it comes to Derrick Moss's current security—literally, almost.

And for some reason, he wants Derrick Moss dead. Or One. Or both. Or someone else hired him, someone who knows Derrick Moss looks a little different than he used to. But that's got to be a pretty limited pool. Right? One can't help thinking of der Hoeven, the casual way he'd talked about that security guard's death. But Brand hadn't exactly taken to One, either, and who knows how many other people in CoreLactic's offices they might have talked to about One's situation? There's no way he can be sure.

One stares at the screen in front of him without seeing it, and wishes all at once, fiercely, that the android were here—the android and that calm practical tone she uses, her pristine and gleaming logic. Two, thoughtful and direct; Five and her unexpected leaps of insight; Four and his unflinching tactical assessments. Hell—

Hell, he'd even take Three. One snorts at the thought. Three would probably think it was hilarious, loop that footage of one One shooting another One until he laughed himself sick. _Hardly blame him for wanting to kill you_ , he'd say, or maybe, _You think I could get somebody to pay **me** the big bucks to off you? Because that's a sweetheart deal right there_.

But Three's not here. None of them are. And even Derrick Moss's bank account probably can't get One the access he'd need to chat with prisoners being held at Hyperion.

Which pretty much just leaves Six. Kal Varrik. Whatever he's thinking of himself as these days. One rubs his forehead. He isn't particularly eager to bring all this up with Six, after last time—Six had hardly even listened to him, had told him to just go be Derrick Moss and forget everything else. And if he'd done that, he'd be dead on the floor right now.

But One doesn't have anyone else to call.

 

 

 

For a minute, he thinks Six isn't going to answer. But then the comm connects and Six is there, blinking into the camera. "One?"

"Six," One says, relieved. "Six—I'm sorry, I know you didn't want me to keep pushing this, but I need your help."

He's not sure what he was expecting, but Six doesn't look annoyed, or give One a long flat look, or sigh. He bites his lip instead, glances at something off past the edge of the screen and then back at One, and then he says, "Well, I think maybe I need yours, too."

"What?" One says. "What for?"

"For Five," Six says, and then explains.

One listens, rubbing his mouth, and thinks about it. On the one hand, he's pretty much decided not to trust Brand or der Hoeven any further than he can throw them. On the other hand, Brand had been so quick with that court order, had extracted One from Hyperion and gotten him settled into this suite without even blinking. There has to be _something_ she can do about Shaddick.

But that's not the only problem. "Even if we get Five away from Serious Crimes," One says, "you can't—you can't be serious about sending her to that home. Six, come on."

"It's her best chance," Six says, in a way that makes One think he's been telling himself that a lot over the past day or two. "It's her best chance, and I—" He stops, sighs sharply through his nose, and then shakes his head, looking down and away. "I don't know what else to do."

And One is suddenly sure he isn't just talking about Five. He sounds tired, frustrated. Lost.

"Well, look," One says. "Look, wait a second. The group home's for orphans, right?"

"Yeah."

"So—so she doesn't need to go there if somebody adopts her," One says slowly. "Some nice upstanding corporate citizen who's got a lawyer on retainer. Like, you know. Me."

Six looks up. "You think that'll work?" he says, and his tone is dubious but there's a sudden spark in his eyes. He's asking because he wants One to say _yes_ , not because he thinks One should say _no_.

"Hey, it's worth a shot, right?" One says, and he's already turning to snag Derrick Moss's jacket off the arm of the sofa.

 

 

 

Calling Brand is half a test—if she looks too surprised to hear from him, then One's going to know she had to be more involved than not with Jace Corso's attempt to off him.

But she answers with the same bland professional smile she'd kept giving him as she'd shown him around the suite that first day. And it's not that she's got a perfect poker face, either, because she does look briefly taken aback when he explains what he wants her to do.

"Obviously I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming I'm paying you a lot," One adds, with what he hopes is a Derrick-Moss-like sense of assurance. "If you can't get it done, I suppose I'll just have to find someone else who can—"

"That won't be necessary, Mr. Moss," Brand says immediately. "The paperwork will be waiting when you reach the facility."

"Perfect," One says, and then, belatedly, "Thank you."

And that might be the thing that's surprised Brand the most, through the whole conversation. "Of course, Mr. Moss," she says.

First the thing about the suite, and now it turns out Moss apparently didn't make a habit of saying "thank you"? One's starting to think Six was wrong about One having always been a good person on the inside. As far as he can tell, Derrick Moss was kind of a jerk.

He doesn't want to take der Hoeven's personal transport—he doesn't even particularly want der Hoeven knowing he's still alive, right now. He looks up paid transports for Hyperion on his tablet instead, makes arrangements to be picked up and taken to the prison base. He's hardly the only person who's had to do as much; there must be people who go there to visit prisoners, family members and that kind of thing.

Which is what he's going to be in a little while, if this works.

 

 

 

Brand didn't lie: the paperwork is ready for him when he arrives. He signs a bunch of things with Derrick Moss's name, certifies them with Jace Corso's thumbprint, and then gets sent to a waiting room to sit around for a few minutes.

He looks up right away when the door opens, and he's pretty sure he's never been so happy to see Six in his life. (In any of his life, probably. Even the parts he doesn't remember. Had Derrick Moss ever been this happy to see Kal Varrik? One guesses the odds are against it.) "Six—"

"It's working," Six says, sounding relieved. "They sent me to get you, to take you to Five. Come on."

And damn, but it's satisfying, bursting into the room where a woman who must be Shaddick is sitting across the table from Five, with Six at his shoulder. One feels like he can read it all at a glance: how Five's got her arms crossed, the sharp steady way she's staring at Shaddick, Shaddick's perfect red smile and cold, cold eyes—

And then Five looks up and sees him, and warmth breaks across her face like a sunrise. " _One_ ," she blurts, and she's up and out of the chair and throwing her arms around his shoulders.

"Hey, kid," One murmurs into her hair.

"What exactly is the meaning of this?" he hears Shaddick asking Six, and what a perfect segue.

"Oh, I'm sure I don't know," he says loudly, breaking away from Five to meet Shaddick's stare with the most blandly pleasant Derrick Moss face he can muster. "But I'd _love_ to hear an answer, because I'm certainly wondering why you thought it was appropriate to question a minor without her guardian or legal representation present."

And Shaddick's not stupid; she can work out what must have happened. Her gaze flicks from One to Five and back to One again, and then to Six, and she says, "An unfortunate but unavoidable breach in protocol. These are very unusual circumstances."

"Sure," One says pleasantly. "Tell it to the civil suit my lawyer will be filing," and then he settles his arm around Five's shoulders and walks her to the door.

 

 

 

They go down a couple corridors, take one corner and then another, until One's pretty sure they're far enough away that Shaddick won't catch up to them. And then he stops and swings around to face Five, and says, "You okay?"

"Yeah, yes," she says, prompt but not so fast that it comes off like she's trying to cover something up. "Shaddick was—she just asked a lot of questions. She didn't like me," Five clarifies, "and she was definitely trying to come up with something on me, something to threaten me with, but she wasn't hurting me."

"Okay," One says, blowing out a breath. "All right." He hadn't thought so, but then again he wouldn't necessarily put it past the GA to beat up a kid.

And then he hesitates. He doesn't have anywhere to take Five except back to Derrick Moss's suite. He doesn't want to go offworld—and it's practical, a little bit, wanting to steer clear of der Hoeven and CoreLactic, but beyond that, it's—

It's just that he doesn't want to go. Two and Three and Four are _here_. Six is here, the android is here. The _Raza_ is here. And One doesn't want to leave them behind.

But, of course, somebody's still trying to kill him.

"What's wrong?"

One blinks. Five is looking at him carefully, because of course she noticed. He glances at Six, and—well, he never did get around to telling Six what happened earlier, did he?

"Well, uh. There's somebody trying to kill me. I didn't listen to you," he adds, to Six. "I made it look like I was going to leave, but the suite had a private Transfer Transit room. I managed to make a clone that—well. Long story short, the clone got everything set up, did the packing, and then got shot. Five times."

Five frowns. "How do you know? If the clone died while you were still—"

"I don't remember anything," One agrees. "But the suite had security cameras installed. I watched the tape."

"So you know who did it, then," Six says.

"Jace Corso," One says, and Five's and Six's faces pass through the same cycle: confusion, insight, understanding.

"Because he could get into your rooms," Five says for both of them, nodding. "Of course."

"Yeah. I don't know whether it was just him, or someone hired him, or—I have no idea. But he walked right in and shot me, which means that might not be the safest place to go anymore."

"Well, not _alone_ ," Five says, like One is being deliberately obtuse. "But once we're in there, I can take care of your security. Switch out all the biometrics for mine, maybe," which is actually a pretty good idea, since One's not planning on going anywhere without her anyway. And he's about to tell her as much when she blithely adds, "Or Six's."

"What? What do I have to do with it?" Six says.

Five stares at him. "You're coming with us," she says. And then, as if it's only just occurred to her that that isn't necessarily true, "Right?"

Six sighs, and it comes out sounding profoundly weary. "Five, I have a job to do—"

"What, with the GA?" Five says, tone scornful. "Oh, please! You _tried_ siding with them instead of us, and look how that ended up." She gestures around them pointedly, to the facility—the base, the hallway Shaddick's somewhere at the other end of, and the prison beyond. "This isn't what you wanted. It can't be."

And One is expecting Six to argue back, because he didn't hesitate about it last time.

But he doesn't. He stands there looking at Five, mouth pressed flat; and then his gaze jumps to One. "The others," he says quietly, "they—they aren't getting a trial."

"See?" Five snaps.

Six doesn't reply.

A beat, and then One finds himself saying slowly, "Look, I get it."

Five turns and gives him an outraged look, but Six—Six looks like One just threw him a lifeline.

"I do. Okay? I understand. You thought you were doing the right thing, and doing the right thing means a lot to you. But sometimes what looks like the right thing before you do it ends up being the wrong thing afterward." One thinks about the file he'd dug up on Catherine, about the weight of a gun in his hand and Three, oblivious, well within range; and he hadn't pulled the trigger, then. But he'd thought about it—hell, he'd been _angry_ with himself, after, thinking about how close he'd come and telling himself he should have just done it. And what if he had?

Sometimes what looked right or fair or just wasn't any of those things at all.

"Which is fine," One adds aloud. "People screw up. What matters is that once you figure out it was really the wrong thing, you don't keep doing it."

Six scrubs a hand across his face and sighs again. "Even if I agreed with you," he says at last, "even if I wanted to leave—what else is there? What am I supposed to do?"

And Five, clearly sensing weakness, beams at him. "Oh, that's easy," she says brightly.

They both look at her, and she gestures toward One with a flourish.

"Well, an attempt was just made on Derrick Moss's life. So he'd better hire a bodyguard, obviously."

"Obviously," One echoes, looking from her to Six and feeling a smile tug at the corner of his mouth—because everything is still pretty awful, but it's actually starting to feel like maybe there's a chance they can fix it.

 

 

 

Six isn't exactly supposed to just up and go—but when resigning from the GA is the whole point, they can hardly threaten to fire him for it.

"I think technically I'm on unpaid leave," Six explains, as they finally file back through the door to Derrick Moss's rented penthouse. "But when I run out of time and still haven't come back, they'll have to let it go."

One glances sideways at Five and finds her looking dubiously back, and yeah, they're on the same page: letting things go hasn't been the GA's strong suit so far.

But maybe this time Six will be right. And if he's not, well, they can be prepared and they can help him take care of it. That's what being part of a crew means.

Five immediately heads off to explore the suite, presumably looking for vents she can climb into or ports she can jack. One sinks down onto Derrick Moss's weird shiny couch with a sigh; and after a minute, Six sits down across from him, hands clasped, elbows on his knees.

"So," he says. "Do we actually have a plan?"

One laughs, strained, and scrubs his hands through his hair. "My plan for today only went up to about the part where I called you. After that we were pretty much off the edge of the map."

"Yeah," Six agrees. "But, look, there's still Two, Three, and Four—even the android, if we can get to her. You know the kid's going to want us to do something about them."

One lets his head fall back and stares up at Derrick Moss's suite's clean bright ceiling. He has no idea what he wants to say. Their odds of being able to break even one person out of Hyperion are probably terrible, and the odds that they can do it and get away afterward are even worse. But Six sounds like One feels: like he knows that, but knowing it isn't enough to silence the part of him that's _certain_ , with wordless unreasoning strength, that it isn't supposed to be like this.

Funny, how things change. When he'd first learned about Catherine, he'd clung to it—he'd wanted to know everything, and he'd shouldered the burden of Derrick Moss's mission of revenge without even thinking about it. But now—

Now he's barely tried to live Derrick Moss's life for two days, and he already hates it. It feels like it has nothing to do with him, like it's a stranger's. The instant Brand had raised the possibility of plastic surgery, he'd known he could never do it. Not because it didn't make sense, not for any actual reason; just sheer gut revulsion at the whole idea.

Because he doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to be Derrick Moss. He wants to be back on the _Raza_ , with a crew full of people who—literally—know him exactly as well as he knows himself.

"I don't think Marcus Boone killed Catherine Moss," he finds himself telling the ceiling. "But even if he had, I—I don't know."

"You're not saying you'd be okay with it," Six says, a hint of uncertainty leaching into his tone.

One keeps staring at the ceiling. "I wouldn't be okay with it," he says slowly. "But—it wasn't Three. And Three's an asshole, but if it had been him, I don't think he'd have killed her."

Six is silent.

One lifts his head back up and looks at him. "Or Two," One presses. "Whatever's on the list of charges the GA has on Portia Lin—Two didn't do any of that. You _know_ her. Derrick Moss and all this crap—" and he gestures around at the stupid shiny sofa, the mirrors and the weird art and all this gleaming expensive _stuff_. "This isn't me. And I know you want to think that means Derrick was a good person, that we all could have been good people, but—"

"The GA let a space station blow up," Six says.

One startles, mouth still half open, and blinks at him.

"They knew it was going to explode, and they let it happen. And I knew about it, and I went back to work for them anyway." Six's mouth twists. "Or—Kal Varrik did."

"Six—"

"That's what I want to think: that it was him, and not me." Six puts his face in his hands, rubs his eyes. "But isn't that too easy? How do I know whether it's true, or just me wanting to let myself off the hook?"

"Maybe you don't get to know."

One jerks, startled, and then turns—Five's standing at the end of the sofa with her arms crossed, watching them.

"Maybe that's the point," she adds. "No matter who did it, it got done. You can't fix it, and you can't change it. You just get to decide what _you_ do, right now." And her tone is challenging, belligerent, except then all at once it softens: "You do miss them, don't you?"

Six sighs through his fingers, a long tired breath. "Yeah," he murmurs. "I do."

One realizes after a second that Five's turned her attention to him. "Yes," he says instantly. "Yeah. I—I wish this were my life." He thinks about der Hoeven, and bites his lip. "Or, well. Some of it, anyway. But it isn't; I've tried it and it just—doesn't fit. And I don't want to be stuck like this."

"Stuck like this," Six repeats, one eyebrow raised. "Stuck in a skyrise with a corporate fortune and—"

"And what?" One says. "Somebody still trying to kill me? Nobody I know, nobody I—" He swallows. "Nobody I trust," and god, that sounds so ridiculous. Doesn't it? It hasn't even been two months since they came out of stasis on the _Raza_. But all any of them had in the world for a while there had been each other, and now that he's faced with losing that, it—

It means more to him than he'd ever realized. And he can't just give that up.

Six makes a sound in his throat. "Trust? You know you're talking about Three, right?" And then, more quietly, "You know you're talking about me. After what I did— _if_ we get them out, _if_ we get away, what makes you think Two won't just kill me?"

"Nobody's going to kill you," Five tells him firmly. "We're going to fix this, and nobody's going to kill anybody."

"Sure," One says. "We just have to break them all out of prison first."

 

 

 

Six doesn't have the prison's layout memorized. But somebody from the GA did go over all the various levels of alerts and staff procedures with him, which is better than nothing.

He lays it all out for One and Five, and then Five taps her chin thoughtfully and says, "Sounds like the alarm system's run on a single-threaded system—only one level of alert can be active at once. And odds are the warden has to authorize any escalation from one level to another."

"Sure," One says. "Uh, how does that help?"

Five gives him a fond, pitying sort of glance. "Six said the black alert for riot control or prisoner escape starts up a sonic disabler," she explains, "and then they gave him those earpieces, even though he was only stationed in the staff wing. All the guards must have them. If that alert level gets triggered and we're in there, we'll go down just as hard as anybody else.

"But if we set off something else first—I mean, we'll still have to be quick, because once they figure out what's going on, the warden can switch to a black alert in no time. But it should give us a window, if we can just time it right."

One looks at Six, who looks back and shrugs, a little sheepish. "Okay," One says. "You keep thinking about that, and I'll—go get you guys some clothes."

 

 

Derrick Moss's clothes aren't going to fit Six—or Five, obviously. And One already sort of thumbed his nose at the GA, going in and taking Five like that. So if they're going to get back into the prison, they need to look as much like what they're supposed to be as they can.

And what they're supposed to be is a rich, self-important corporate CEO, his tragic and totally technically-challenged teenage ward, and a nondescript bodyguard who left the GA for the pay and not over any kind of crisis of ethics.

"Wow, this is actually a really nice color," Five says, smoothing down her skirt admiringly.

It's turquoise—a couple shades lighter than the lightest bits of her hair. One had thought she might like it.

"I figured after Derrick Moss went to all that trouble to force the paperwork through, he'd probably let you wear what you liked," One says. "Within reason." Getting her a jacket four sizes too big didn't seem quite in line with Derrick Moss's ideas about clothes, judging by the stuff One had found in his closet.

Five beams at him. "Investing some serious thought in our false narrative!" she says approvingly, and holds up a hand until One gives in and high-fives her.

Six looks perfect in his suit: it's subtly pinstriped, obviously expensive, but only at close range. From further away it's just sort of dark gray, and it makes him look stern and imposing and possibly even taller than usual.

One's already made the arrangements with the prison to allow them to visit Two—he'd figured she was the best option. For Five's sake, or at least that was the sob story; and she and Five could hug and cry and then they'd take out all the guards in the visiting room.

And everything seems to be going pretty much fine. The prison doesn't turn them away, despite all the trouble Derrick Moss has caused them—though maybe that's why, maybe they're hoping this time he won't have any reason to pitch a fit or sic Brand on them again.

Whatever the reason, they make it inside. None of the guards give Six any funny looks, and they're guided without interruption up a long corridor to the visiting room.

Which doesn't have Two in it.

"Well, hey, guys," Three says, leaning back in the chair with a smile and a faint rattling of cuffs. "Fancy seeing you here."

 

 

 

One stares at him; for a few seconds, he just can't stop himself. He really _had_ missed Three, god help him, because being in the same room with Three again is like something settling back into place, something he hadn't known or named or weighed but had nevertheless felt the lack of. He'd—he'd _hug_ Three, if he thought Three would let him.

As it is he'll probably have to settle for punching Three in the face sometime soon, which is basically the same thing.

"Cupcake," Three says to him with a smirk. "Muscles," to Six, and then, "Hey, kid," more gently, to Five.

 _I'm not a kid, dammit_ passes across Five's face so clearly One almost thinks she actually said it for a second—but no, she holds it in. Because, after all, there are still two guards by the door, and it's for the best if "kid" is all they see when they look at her.

"Hey," she says instead, tactically wobbly—and Three can tell, eyes narrowing, though that smug smile is still tacked firmly in place. She bypasses the chair on the other side of the table, starts to round the corner, and in One's peripheral vision the guards both tense up.

"Miss," one of them says warningly. "Miss, don't—"

"I just want to give him a hug," Five says, strident and unsteady. "That's okay, right? You can't tell me I'm not allowed to give him a hug—"

 _Grab her_ , One mouths.

Three makes a baffled face at him.

 _Grab. Her_ , and One makes a little motion, wraps one of his hands around the other wrist and raises his eyebrows. Yeah, Three's hands are cuffed through a ring at the edge of the table, but Five knows that. She's going to get close enough to make it work.

"Miss," the guard is saying, just as Five rounds the far corner of the table, and Three glances at her, at One, at Six, and then jerks his cuffed hands as far as he can and just barely manages to snag Five's forearm.

It's not much of a grab, but Five sells it for all she's worth, stumbling into Three like he actually did pull on her and shrieking, "Boone!"

The guards, already on edge, start forward instantly, and Six and One move at the same time, in the same direction—as though they're trying to help, going for Five too. They're not expecting the blows to the back, Six driving one of them straight on past Five and into the wall while One slams the other one's head down and sideways into the table.

Once they're both down, One looks up: Three is still hanging onto Five's arm, and his expression is mildly impressed. "Okay," he says, "that was actually pretty badass. And I'm assuming you didn't come in here and do that just so you could get me blamed for it and thrown in solitary?"

"Of course not," Five says, tone scolding, before she twists around in his grasp and actually does give him a hug.

"Okay, all right, come on, kid—" Three'd already have squirmed away, One thinks, if he weren't handcuffed in place.

"I'm not a kid, dammit," Five says into his shoulder, and lets go with one hand to punch him in the arm.

"I hate to interrupt," Six says, "but aren't we on a bit of a deadline?"

"Oh, hey, thanks for the reminder about that burning question I wanted to ask! What the fuck are _you_ doing here?"

"He's helping," One says, when Six doesn't answer.

Three snorts. "The hell he is! I'm sorry, are you serious? You came up with some kind of plan to break us out of prison and then _told him about it_? Did you lose your memory again, or are you just stupid? He's GA, there's no way we can trust him—"

"He's not," Five says firmly. "He left and he's not going back."

"Oh, please. He's not going back, my left asscheek—"

"Okay, we seriously don't have time for this," One interrupts, before Three can go into any more detail about what his ass thinks of Six's motives. "We could ask you the same question: weren't you supposed to be on a work detail with Four?"

"Two wanted to take the opportunity to look around, get a sense for the floorplan." Three shrugs. "Nobody told us it was going to be you guys. How do you even know that?"

"I hacked the prison database, obviously," Five says briskly, and crosses around behind Three's chair to climb up on the other end of the table. "We wanted to make sure we'd know where they were when we did this," and she slides the slim black container out of her pocket and holds it up to the vent. "Everybody ready?"

One and Six lean away and cover their mouths, and Three looks at them, blinking, and says, "What the hell is that?"

"Nothing that bad," Five says. "But, uh, maybe cover your face for a second."

"With _what_?" Three says, jangling his handcuffs pointedly.

"Right, right," and Five slides her jacket off and then, smiling sweetly at Three, drops it on his head. "Okay, here we go," and, ignoring Three's muffled noises of outrage, she straightens back up, slides the narrow vial through the grille of the vent, and positions her elbow over her own face. Just a nudge with the tip of her finger, and it tips over.

A beat, two, and then the lights dim just a little before flaring suddenly red, and somewhere in the distance an alarm starts to sound.

"Perfect!" Five says over it, hopping down off the table, and then yanks her jacket off Three with a flourish. "Now let's get you out of those cuffs."

 

 

 

"So, seriously, what the hell was that stuff you put in the vent?" Three says, angling a wary glance up at the ceiling and rubbing his wrists.

"It was just some unmanipulated biogel," Five tells him, hooking the cuff key back onto one guard's belt. "From a Transfer Transit tube—the biomass the clones are constructed out of? It's not really harmful. Probably. But it's not a good idea to get very much on you or swallow it or anything. And, more importantly, it registers to a closed environmental control system as a foreign biological contaminant. Which means—"

"—lockdown," One finishes, because, yeah, the door pad is definitely not responding.

Three stares at him. "You seriously let the kid talk you into breaking in here and then getting yourselves _locked in_. On purpose."

"We're not locked in," Five says, and tugs a different key out of the guard's jacket—or, not quite a key so much as a little flat metal thing, black, with a little silvery design on it. "Because we have a guard's access authentication chip. Or, well, you do."

"I do," Three repeats. "Why me?"

"You and Six," Five amends, handing the chip to Three. "You're the criminals—or, well, he's the disillusioned ex-GA officer who spent too long undercover. _You're_ the criminal. And if we run into any other guards before we get to where Two and Four should be, you're the criminal who's got hostages."

Three looks at her and then at One, who smiles and waves the tips of his fingers. "Derrick Moss, CoreLactic CEO and owner and supposedly valuable human being," One says, "at your service."

"So, okay," Three says slowly, reaching down for the other guard's holster, "you're saying I get to point a gun at you?" He hefts the guard's gun, checks the ammo and flicks off the safety, and then aims it at One and smiles wide. "Suddenly I'm liking this plan a whole lot better."

And One can almost remember what it would have been like to have that piss him off; but it doesn't. He looks at Three and wants to grin instead, and hell, why shouldn't he? So he does, and then says to Three's startled face, "Yeah, yeah. Just remember not to shoot. That'll probably slow us down a little."

Three doesn't snap or yell, doesn't even roll his eyes. He just stares at One for a beat, at his face—at how he's smiling, maybe; and then he snorts and shakes his head and says, "Ruin my fun, why don't you?"

 

 

 

Three doesn't shoot.

He doesn't even actually point the gun at One all that much. Most of their path from the visiting room to the prison infirmary—which is where Two and Four should have been trapped by the lockdown, according to Five—is clear, and Three can use the guard's chip to seal each door again behind them as they go, so nobody can sneak up on them.

But it won't be like that in the infirmary.

"Bound to be somebody in there keeping an eye on them," Three says. "Infirmary's got drugs, needles, scalpels—all kinds of stuff they don't want prisoners getting their hands on. Doc asked for help with inventory and the warden gave it to him, but there are _definitely_ guards in there."

"Hostage time," Five summarizes, and backs up so Six can loop a careful elbow under her chin.

One tunes out Six's murmured instructions to Five about how to hold her head so she can be sure he won't choke her, even by accident, and looks at Three. It makes sense. He and Six couldn't bring weapons in here, and there were only two guards in the visiting room; Six has one of their guns, Three's got the other one. Playing hostage is the most useful thing One can do.

But there's something kind of weird about holding still so Three can come up behind him and tuck his forearm tight against One's throat. Not bad, just—weird: Three pressed up against his back like that, solid and—and _present_. They'd never really touched each other that much, except when they were hypoxic. Or tied up. And then One hadn't been sure he'd ever see Three again in his life, and now here he is.

"Take a breath, peaches," Three mutters, and One realizes abruptly that he hasn't been. "I'm not killing you 'til we get the rest of them out of there."

"No, I—" One says, unthinking, and then manages to catch the rest of the words in his teeth before they can get out. _I wasn't worried about that._

It's true. He almost laughs at himself, because what a stupid time for this, but—it's true. Three's an asshole, but he's had so many opportunities to shoot One, even before all this, and he hasn't taken a single one of them. One thinks about being crouched in that forest, about the back of Three's head in his sights; he's pretty sure he thought more seriously then about shooting Three than Three's ever thought about shooting him.

Which makes him feel a little sick, when he thinks about it like that, and he stands there in the warm loop of Three's arm and tells himself: not anymore. It's not going to be like that anymore. He's throwing away Derrick Moss's life for a reason, for something that matters, and Three's a part of that.

"No, I'm fine," he manages to say instead, and he can feel Three's chuckle in his chest, his arms.

"You better be," Three says, "because I have to tell you, this would be a _really_ bad time for you to faint."

 

 

 

When the infirmary door opens, One thinks for a second that they've _really_ miscalculated. He sees Two first, and then Four a little ways away; and then strangers, four, six, eight— _two-to-one odds, that's definitely not what I was hoping for._

But their entrance, Three's shout of, "Nobody move!", is only greeted by six raised weapons. This time One doesn't look at faces, but at uniforms, and two of the strangers are dressed like Two, like Four. Other prisoners.

They have their hands up, and so do Two and Four. Two's face was set in grim hard lines, the look she gets when she's starting to think about fighting her way out; she probably thought the door opening was more guards arriving. But One sees recognition sweep across her expression—Five first, and Two's gaze softens with relief, and then Six behind her, One and Three and their ridiculous position, and the corner of her mouth twitches.

One shoots her a flat look, just so she'll know he saw that.

"Nobody move," Three says again. "We've got hostages, and we're not afraid to use them."

"You've got to be kidding me," One mutters.

"Keep it to yourself, Moss," Three says sharply, nudging the mouth of his borrowed gun against One's temple, and right, right, One should probably at least pretend to be worried about what he might do with it.

The guards don't shoot, but they don't lower their guns either. "We don't negotiate with prisoners," one of them says, though her tone doesn't sound as sure about that as she probably wanted it to.

"The lockdown," Two says. "That was you?"

"Welcome to the Marcus Boone exclusive prison break experience," Three says, and then, with a wink, "Figured if I left you here, you'd just get out anyway, and then shoot me in the head when you found me. Portia."

And that's all it takes for Two to get the picture. "You're damn right I would," she says briskly.

"So! Anybody who's not planning on busting the hell out of here, weapons down."

The guards glance at each other. One or two of them waver a little, but they settle back into position when they see the rest hesitating.

"Come on, weapons down," Three repeats. "Surely you don't want the death of this fine upstanding citizen on your conscience?"

"Killing him will only add time to your sentence," the first guard says, a little more confidently.

"Uh, I'm not planning on serving a sentence, lady. That's the point of breaking out." Three tugs One a little closer, tightens his arm around One's throat just a little more, and One leans back into him like it was a lot more forceful and tries not to laugh when Three staggers for a second. "Look, you don't think I'm going to do it? Because I've got two hostages, here. I can afford to shoot one to prove a point, if you make me."

For a second, the guard wobbles back to looking unsure; but then her expression firms up, and she shifts her weight, positions herself more evenly into a shooting stance. "We don't negotiate with prisoners," she repeats.

"Oh, come on, quit fuckin' _talking_ to them," the man next to her says suddenly. He was one of the ones who twitched earlier, when Three told them to put their guns down; and suddenly, looking at his face, his tight jaw, the way his gaze is jumping around, One doesn't think it was because he wanted to give up. "You know how this is supposed to go, Mishra."

"Bennett—"

"You know how this is supposed to go," the man repeats, louder, and One has an instant to see his arms move, the split-second adjustment to his aim. Because he's not going to shoot Three—

"Bennett!" Mishra shouts, half the name lost in the sound of his gun firing, and One flinches and feels himself jerk sideways, spin halfway around.

"Fuck! Fucking fuck," Three yells, at basically the same moment One realizes nothing actually hurts. It was Three, Three shoved him; Three swung them around sideways and shoved him and is clutching at his side.

For a beat, nobody moves. And then ten things happen at once. Six fires; Five ducks out of his hold and dashes sideways, to the cover of an infirmary bed. Two and one of the other prisoners, the woman next to her, move like—like they planned it, two halves of one whole, striking out in opposite directions with equal speed. Four doesn't have a sword, but he reaches around the fourth prisoner for the rail of a second infirmary bed, swings it sideways on its wheels and then kicks it firmly into the side of another guard. And One grabs with one hand for Three, who's started to list sideways, and with the other hand for Three's gun.

Together they shoot a good half-dozen times, One aiming and Three squeezing the trigger; Bennett goes down, and some other woman next to him, and then Three starts to really lean into One's arm and they leave a bunch of dents in the infirmary wall.

"Fuck," Three says again, sounding nothing so much as blearily surprised, and One quits worrying about the guards and focuses on trying to lower him down safely.

"You idiot," One says absently, feeling along the curves of Three's ribs until he hits the part that's gone wet and sticky with blood.

"Yeah," Three says, breathless, "don't know what I was thinking, definitely letting you get shot next time."

"Devon," Two is saying, and One looks up: the guards are all down, Four standing over the last of them with a satisfied little slant to his mouth, and Two is looking at—at the fourth prisoner, the man. "Devon, can you help him?"

"I, uh," Devon says, and then shakes himself and seems to get a grip. "Yeah, yes. Just let me grab a couple things."

He turns aside to the infirmary cabinets—half of them are broken, smashed glass scattered by gunfire, but that doesn't slow him down.

"Whoa, hey, I don't like strangers," Three slurs, and Two crosses the room to crouch down beside him.

"He's the infirmary assistant," she says gently. "He used to be a doctor. He can patch you up, at least until we get back to the _Raza_."

"Plus," Devon calls, halfway through one cabinet, "I've got drugs." He holds a bottle up over his shoulder, still scanning the shelves in front of him, and shakes it coaxingly.

"Don't like strangers, but I do like drugs," Three allows, and One shakes his head, bites down on a totally inappropriate laugh, and doesn't let go of him.

 

 

 

The android is in a different wing entirely, but Six knows where. "Shaddick took me to see her," he says, not meeting anyone's eyes. "To try to get her to release her internal files—her records of her experiences, for them to go through."

"But you didn't make her?" Five says.

Six doesn't answer for a long moment. "She wouldn't," he says at last, still not looking up. "She said I wasn't a member of the _Raza_ 's crew, so she wasn't required to follow my orders."

"Damn straight," Three says blurrily, half into One's shoulder. "Robot knows what's what."

Two looks at him and then at Six. "Enough," she says, and then, "To be honest, I'm not happy about the idea of you coming back on board my ship. But I'm even less happy about the idea of leaving you here for the GA to interrogate, or whatever the hell they're going to do to you. And we could still use your help.

"I don't want to leave you behind. But I'm not interested in getting shot in the back again, either. So I'm only going to ask you this once: in, or out?"

And Six glances at her and then at Five, at One, and says quietly, "In."

"Good enough for now," Two says flatly. "Let's go."

It's not far to get to the room where the GA's been keeping the android. Which is good, because One has to practically carry Three the whole way.

"Goddamn, you're heavy," he mutters to Three partway there, trying to adjust his grip without pressing on any part of the bandage Devon slapped together.

"All muscle, darlin'," Three says into the side of One's throat, and One swallows and ignores the shiver trying to work its way down the back of his neck. Three is so—irritating. Really, really irritating. One works his shoulder a little further under Three's arm, tucks Three's weight a little more securely against his side. Irritating, and—warm.

The tech who's busy muttering over some screen next to the android barely has time to turn around before Two's cold-cocked him into the wall, and then Five hurries up alongside. "Is she hurt?" Two snaps, low and urgent.

But Five barely has time to look at the screen before the android blinks and says, "I am fully operational and undamaged. Are we leaving?"

"Yes," Two says. "Yes, we are," and the android smiles up at her placidly.

"Good," she says, and stands.

 

 

 

One didn't want to count on a hired shuttle, this time around—even a really, really good tip probably wasn't enough to keep a professional driver around when a prison lockdown went into effect.

So when they reach the shuttle bay, it's to climb into a rental that apparently meets all of Derrick Moss's usual specifications, at least according to Felicia Brand. Which One's pretty happy about, right this second, because it actually has a pair of bunks in the rear where he can set Three down. Really well-upholstered bunks.

"Wow," Devon says, pausing in the rear hatch to stare. "This is really, really nice. Whose is this?"

"Mine," One says absently.

"Right, okay. And who are you again?"

"Moss," says the other prisoner—the woman, Nyx—before One can. "That's what he called you, isn't it?"

One glances up: she's looking at him, gaze sharp and steady, like she knows something he doesn't. For some reason he thinks of the hallway, of Three sighing words against his throat. But he hadn't shivered. Just because he might have, could have done—something, that doesn't mean anything. She couldn't know that. Right?

"Derrick Moss," Nyx adds. "CoreLactic Industries, right? And Marcus Boone—" and her eyes cut sideways to Three for an unnecessarily significant moment's pause, before she concludes, "killed your wife."

"He didn't," One corrects automatically. "And she wasn't—uh. It's complicated."

"I'm sure it is," Nyx says, delicate and wry. "And you could have taken all this and gone off and lived your life, and instead you broke into prison for him."

And it does sound a little odd, when she puts it like that. One hadn't thought about how it must look, to anyone who still thinks he really is Derrick Moss.

But he isn't. He isn't, and he discovers that he's pretty sure he won't ever want to be.

"I couldn't," he says aloud, looking past Nyx and into the cockpit. Two and the android have already settled into the pilot's and co-pilot's seats, Six and Four behind them, Five just buckling herself in and Devon sliding in beside her. "Go off and live my life, I mean," he clarifies, when he glances at Nyx again and sees her raised eyebrow. "The money, the company, everything I had—it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough, when I didn't have anything that really mattered."

And that, for some reason, makes Nyx's face go blank; but before she can so much as open her mouth to reply, Three makes a loud disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. "Goddamn, you are unbelievable. Are you listening to this chump?" He cracks an eye and settles it blearily on Nyx. "Sickening, isn't it? Fuckin'—daisies and sunshine, right thing to do, just on and on once you get 'im started. Stick in the mud; stick up his _ass_ —"

Nyx clears her throat. "I'd better go sit," she says, sounding like she's only half-swallowed a laugh, and she claps One on the shoulder and then moves off toward the front of the shuttle.

"—so far it should be coming out your face, I'm telling you—"

"Oh, shut up," One tells Three, and starts fastening the bunk's safety straps around him, steadfastly ignoring his half-articulated complaints.

 

 

 

The _Raza_ is still in orbit around Hyperion, waiting for a GA forensics team; they dodge a couple dozen green bolts from the prison's external defense system, and then they're just about home free.

Except, of course, One still has to get Three to the infirmary.

He has some help from Devon this time, at least; and they get Three settled on the bed and then One feels the comforting hitch of the _Raza_ going into FTL.

Devon takes a quick glance around the infirmary, and then says, "Are there any more medical supplies on board, besides what's in here?"

"This should be most of it," One says, "but there's a vault in the cargo bay that might have something."

"Got it," Devon says, and hurries out, and then—

Then it's just One and Three.

Three's got his eyes shut. Maybe he's asleep. Or maybe he just passed out somewhere along the way. One stares at him and thinks about the last time they'd seen each other, pointing guns at each other and yelling; being so, so _sure_ Three would kill him, wouldn't hesitate. And yet they'd still stood there trying to talk each other down, neither of them quite able to take the shot.

Feels like their whole relationship in a nutshell, right there: getting the opportunity, over and over again, and never taking the shot.

Except this time, One supposes, Three _did_ take the shot—the one meant for One. And he'll be so fucking smug about adding another mark to his lifesaving tally. Maybe One can argue that carrying him all that way to the shuttle cancels it out.

"What, you still here?"

One blinks; Three's squinting up at him from the bed, shifting a little against the pillow and then grimacing when it hurts. Idiot.

"Hold still, you idiot," he says.

"Aw, c'mon, I'm not hurt that bad. That guard was a crappy shot."

"Right," One says slowly. "That's why you got between me and him. Because you were afraid he'd—miss."

And Three, astoundingly, looks away and clears his throat. "I was _trying_ to get you out of my way. Fuckin' hostages. The vids never make it look like having somebody hanging off you like that is going to fuck up your aim." He clears his throat again, and then adds, "I have to tell you, you were about the last person I was expecting to walk into that visiting room."

"Yeah, it was a sight for sore eyes, I'm sure," One says, wry. "You missed me in there, huh?"

"Hardly," Three says comfortably. "Just 'cause I saved your life again doesn't mean you need to get cocky." And then his whole face brightens all at once. "Hey—I saved your life again!"

"Yeah, yeah," One says, distracted by the smile he can feel tugging at the corner of his mouth. Three's just being his usual asinine self; it's just—

It's just how One feels about it that's changed. Funny, how much perspective a couple days as Derrick Moss had given him.

"Listen," he hears himself say. "Listen, Three, I wanted to tell you—"

And Three must be able to hear the change in his tone of voice, the sudden seriousness, because he groans and throws an arm over his face. "No, god, save your bullshit for someone who cares—"

"About what happened right before the GA came for us," One says loudly, steamrolling onward. "I was going to shoot you."

"And I was going to shoot you," Three agrees, with a sigh. "What's your point?"

"I thought I didn't trust you," One says. "But the thing is—I'm not sure I really knew what that meant, to not trust someone, to think they might want you dead. I didn't _like_ you. You were annoying, and selfish, and stubborn."

"Hey, back at you, pal—"

"But being Derrick Moss, it was—it was so different. If you'd actually wanted me dead, you had plenty of chances. And you blew them so often you have a tally to keep track." One shakes his head. "All that time we were standing there in the corridor yelling at each other, waving our guns around. Jace Corso didn't hesitate for a _second_."

"Jace Corso," Three says slowly, "didn't hesitate to do what?"

"He killed me," One explains belatedly. "Or he thought he was killing me, anyway. It doesn't matter. The point is—"

"Son of a bitch," Three breathes. "Are you serious? When?"

"Before we came to get you out," One says inanely—as if he could've done it afterward, when they've only just left Hyperion behind. "A few days ago now, I guess."

Three rubs a hand across his forehead. "Jesus," he says, and then darts a glance at One and clears his throat. "I mean, who knows how long we'd have been stuck on that fucking rock, right?"

"Yeah, that was definitely what worried me about the thought of being dead," One agrees, flat. "The _point_ is, nobody's sitting around griping at Derrick Moss about how many times they've had to save his stupid ass. Nobody—nobody gives a shit about that guy, not really. And I thought I had to be him, but I don't. Two doesn't have to be Portia Lin, if she doesn't want to. And Six—I know, I know, you're pissed," he interrupts himself, when Three starts to scowl blackly, "but just hear me out—Six doesn't have to be Kal Varrik. And I think maybe today he decided not to be.

"And you—you don't have to be Marcus Boone. We're different people with different lives, and we don't have to do things the way our old selves would have done them. We can make new choices."

Three lies there looking at him silently for a moment, after he's done, and then raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm sorry," he says, "I was just waiting for the choir of angels to start up, or maybe some kind of low-key inspiring theme music."

"You're an asshole," One tells him, but he's grinning when he says it.

"An asshole who saved your life. _Again_ ," Three says smugly. And then, because he never met a moment he didn't want to ruin, he winks and says, "And if you'd like to thank me for it, I've got a couple of suggestions for you." He holds a hand up to his mouth and stage-whispers, "The vids also lied about how much dick-sucking goes on in prison."

One looks at him. He's clearly expecting One to roll his eyes and tell him that if he's so desperate he can go fuck himself. And there's a part of One that definitely wants to do it, because that's the kind of thing Three could stand to hear more often. But—

But there's another part of him that's still caught on what a sheer fucking relief it had been to walk into that visiting room and see Three right there in front of him, smirking, eyebrow raised. How easy it had been to let Three put a gun to his head, how thoroughly he'd looked inside himself for any scrap of apprehension and how completely he'd failed to find one. The way Three had felt at his back, steady solid presence; the barest brush of Three's mouth against his throat every time Three mumbled something drugged and meaningless, the whole endless way through the prison corridors.

And One's not going to keep circling back to the same old choices anymore. He wants to make new ones—he wants to take the shot.

Three still looks amused, comfortable, even as One's hand settles against his face; alarm only starts to creep in when One grips his jaw, tilts his chin, and even then it's probably because he thinks One's lining up to punch him. It's not until One starts to lean in that he looks genuinely surprised, the briefest snapshot just before One's eyes fall shut: eyebrows climbing, mouth gone soft and round with startlement.

He makes the barest noise in his throat, bewildered, just as their mouths touch, and One's distantly surprised by the zing of heat he feels at hearing it. He presses in a little harder than he meant to, abruptly and surprisingly desperate, and swallows that noise; licks along Three's lower lip, catches his tongue for an instant on the brief sharp unevenness of teeth, and then—

Then Three makes a different noise, deeper, and grabs One's wrist, and sucks One's tongue into his mouth—like maybe he wants One to remember he'd said _cock-sucking_ , not _kissing_.

And for a second, One does think about it. About how easy it would be, Three already laid out on the infirmary bed—

In the infirmary. Where Three is because he got shot like an hour ago, and where Devon's going to come back to as soon as he's done looking for whatever it was he wanted.

One breaks away and makes himself straighten up, lets go of Three's face and unthinkingly licks his lips—he can't help it, his mouth is wet and buzzing, and judging by the look Three gets in his eyes, it's probably also pretty red.

"Thanks," he hears himself say, and then he turns around to walk out.

For about half the distance to the infirmary door, he thinks Three just isn't going to say anything; maybe he got Three's noises all wrong, maybe Three didn't want him to do that. Maybe they're just going to pretend this didn't happen.

And then he hears a rustle behind him—Three sitting up a little against the pillow, maybe?—and Three's outraged voice says, "What, that's it? I saved your _life_ , man, that's got to be worth a thank-you fuck! At the absolute least—"

"Yeah, I'm not _that_ grateful," One tosses over his shoulder blandly, and then has to hold in his laughter at the frustrated noise Three makes until he's sure he's far enough away that Three won't hear him.

 

 


End file.
